B2B SALES PERFORMANCE / INSIGHT
“We need more leads.”
B2B CEOs say this regularly. And it is easy to understand why. When revenue is not growing the way it should, the instinct is to look at the top of the funnel.
Read the insightThe hidden cost
More activity does not always create more revenue.
More leads mean more opportunities. More opportunities mean more revenue. The logic feels sound.
But when you actually look at the funnel and sit down with the pipeline data rather than the presentation of it, something different often appears.
The company does not have a lead problem. It has a sales conversion problem.
Adding more leads to a funnel that is losing revenue at every stage is like pouring water into a bucket with holes in it. The bucket stays wet. It never gets full.
A leaky funnel
A typical B2B sales funnel can look healthy at the top while losing significant revenue further down the pipeline.
For example, imagine a funnel where 1,000 leads produce 5 customers.
Follow the gaps
The immediate instinct is to generate more leads. If 1,000 leads produce 5 customers, then 2,000 leads should produce 10.
But 850 leads never became a meaningful conversation. 90 conversations never became a qualified opportunity. 30 proposals were written that never became an order.
leads never became a meaningful conversation
conversations never became a qualified opportunity
proposals never became an order
The opportunity
If the team improves conversion at just two of those stages by 20%, the output can change far more dramatically than simply doubling lead volume — and at a fraction of the cost.
Diagnose before you amplify
The structural reasons behind a pipeline that looks busy but does not convert.
When qualification standards are vague or inconsistently applied, the pipeline fills with opportunities that were never likely to close.
The team works hard. The conversion rate stays low. Leadership concludes that the problem is volume when the problem is selection.
01In many B2B sales conversations, the salesperson moves to the solution too quickly.
The buyer’s actual problem — its full commercial impact, its urgency and the cost of doing nothing — is never explored deeply enough to create genuine buying motivation.
02Features are described. Capabilities are demonstrated.
But the commercial impact — what specifically changes for the buyer and what changes in their numbers and operations — is left for the buyer to work out on their own.
Most buyers do not make that calculation. They default to price instead.
03A deal can progress smoothly with one contact and then stall because the actual decision-maker was never part of the conversation.
By the time the right person is identified, a competitor who mapped the buying committee from the beginning may already have shaped how they think about the problem.
04If a salesperson cannot articulate in two sentences, specifically and credibly, why their solution is the better choice for this buyer in this situation, the buyer will fall back on the safest and most familiar option.
05A proposal sent before the buyer’s decision process is understood is a document looking for a conversation it has not yet earned.
A proposal sent after a competitor has already framed the buying criteria may arrive too late to change the outcome.
06
Change the sequence
Before asking how to generate more demand, ask how much of the demand you already generate you are actually converting.
This is not an argument against generating more leads. At some stage of growth, volume matters.
The CEOs who grow most efficiently are the ones who fix the funnel before they fill it. They understand exactly where their conversion is breaking down, address the structural reasons for it and then — with a funnel that actually works — turn up the volume.
In that sequence, lead generation is enormously powerful.
In the wrong sequence, it is expensive distraction.
The takeaway
If you are a CEO or business head of a B2B company and your pipeline looks healthy but revenue is not growing proportionately, the more important question may not be how to generate more leads.
It may be: Where is the conversion leakage happening?Not necessarily. Before generating more demand, a B2B company should understand how much of the demand it already generates is actually converting. If the sales funnel is leaking at multiple stages, adding more leads can increase activity and cost without proportionately increasing revenue.
Sales conversion leakage occurs when potential revenue is lost between stages of the B2B sales funnel. It can happen through poor qualification, weak discovery, inadequate value articulation, wrong stakeholders, weak differentiation or proposals that are not aligned with the buyer’s decision process.
The six common conversion leakage points are poor qualification, weak discovery, inadequate value articulation, wrong stakeholders, weak differentiation and proposal without buying-process alignment.
The sequence matters. A company should understand and address significant conversion problems in its sales funnel before simply increasing lead volume. Once the funnel is working effectively, lead generation can become significantly more powerful.
B2B companies can improve conversion by identifying where revenue is leaking in the funnel and addressing the structural reasons behind those losses, including qualification, discovery, value articulation, stakeholder mapping, differentiation and buying-process alignment.
Vipul Kukreja has over 36 years of experience in Sales and Marketing, Entrepreneurship, successfully Launching new ventures, managing Profit & Loss Account, motivating teams to achieve business goals and deliver customer value. After his M.B.A. in Marketing from the University Business School, Panjab University. Vipul started his career with Garware Paints Limited. As a management trainee and Sales Officer, he focused on achieving the company goal of making an entry in the B2B market in the state of Rajasthan, where the primary focus of the company was consumer segment.
His passion for Information Technology sector started when he joined Computer Point, India’s first one-stop outlet for everything in computers. He closely worked with his senior management in establishing the company in its formative stages to spearhead the adoption of computer systems in the corporate through Learning and Development. His former superiors and colleagues still reminisce fondly about his evangelizing usage of computers in over 1000 major corporates in the early years of computerization in India. He converted this market need for knowledge of technology into a highly profitable Computer Learning Division and ran it as a profit center.
At Silverline Technologies Limited, he replicated the computer training model, taking it to much larger scale, helping a fledgling IT company establish a pre-eminent name in the marketing of computer training and related solutions and software products. During this period, he designed, developed and delivered Sales Training Program for his team.
HA short stint in the U.A.E. with Jumbo Electronics computer division as Sales Manager gave him exposure to an international and multi-cultural market. Back in India, he took up one of the biggest challenges of his life as General Manager -Sales & Marketing for MicroGiga (a Mafatlal company) where with the help of his seniors and the board, he helped turn the company profitable in a short span of time, enabling it to become one of the largest business partners of Hewlett Packard from India, globally.
His last assignment in the corporate sector was Tata Consultancy Services where he played the role of the National Head for Software Products.
Over 2 decades ago, bitten by an entrepreneurial bug, he founded and launched an executive search firm, M2S Consulting. Within a short span, the company grew to become one of the biggest go-to brand names for Headhunting top management for the Information Technology sector in Mumbai. Vipul is a certified DISC Assessor, a Certified Business Coach, and a Certified Executive Coach.
A lifelong student of management, sales, marketing, business development, Vipul is a trained Digital Marketor too. As an entrepreneur, he empathizes with the businesses struggling to grow and is very passionate about helping business seek the business goals and dreams, they had set out for. As a mentor, advisor and execution partner his philosophy is co-creation of business outcomes.
Vipul is a charter member of The Rotary Club of Thane Skyline, where he served as a President too. He is an active member of the Rotary District 3142, contributing actively to the upliftment of the underprivileged. He is an avid reader and spiritually inclined. Integrity to self and the customer is his dictum and delivering value is the battle cry.
Married to Jyoti, Vipul happily lives with his mother and daughter Janhavi and son Vishrut.
